Monday, 24 May 2010

Are our Educational Institutions simply ripping us off?

Charlotte writes to Consumer Protection group:Are our Educational Institutions simply ripping us off?? Is the Price of Education a Realistic reflection of what we get for money? Are universities (and private institutes) in Namibia in it for the education or the money?

(4) All persons shall have the right, at their own expense, to establish and to maintain private schools, or colleges or other institutions of tertiary education:

provided that:

(a) such schools, colleges or institutions of tertiary education are registered with a Government department in accordance with any law authorising and regulating such registration;

(b) the standards maintained by such schools, colleges or institutions of tertiary education are not inferior to the standards maintained in comparable schools, colleges or institutions of tertiary education funded by the State;

Tertiary education schools are mushrooming all over the country. They provide everything from art classes, computer literacy and business skills. The problem is the standards are not very good, and most students receive a qualification which is not worth the paper it is printed on. Let us look at a typical example and call it the TertiaryEducationAcademy.

TertiaryEducationAcademy (TEA)

The owner TEA is a businessman without any qualification in education, after all, the Academy is a business and was started to make a profit. None of the staff members, including the Principal, has any professional training or recognised educational qualification. The lecturers at the Academy are also not qualified teachers.

TEA offers the following courses:

·Typing skills

·Bookkeeping

·Computer Literacy – Microsoft Office

·PC Engineering – A+ and N+

·Software Programming

The Academy also offers Diplomas in Tourism, Public Relations, Business, Finance and Personnel Administration.

The Academy is a very profitable business and they owner is planning on offering further diploma courses.

Great! However, most of the students (and their parents) are not aware that the lecturers are not professionally qualified. Furthermore, imagine the students’ dismay when they find out that none of these courses are recognised by the Namibian Qualifications Authority. Even worse, the diploma courses are not worth more than a Grade 12 according to the Universities.

Now before we start closing all these schools, institutes and academies, let us examine their role in our country.

More and more students are completing their schooling and not finding place at the University or Polytechnic. Their parents or care-givers cannot afford the study fees in other countries, so these students have to look for employment. Having no marketable skill, they often do not find employment and become one of the unemployed.

The private tertiary education institutes offer the students an opportunity to gather knowledge about business and prepare them for gainful employment.

So what can we do?

We need to have a body that actively encourages that “the standards maintained by such schools, colleges or institutions of tertiary education are not inferior to the standards maintained in comparable schools, colleges or institutions of tertiary education funded by the State”. The NQA must be publicise the names of those that are registered and meet their standards. Furthermore, the NQA must be given teeth to close down those who do not meet the standards set within a period of time.

Note: Mr. Louw is the founder of the Namibia Consumer Protection Group but answers these submissions in his personal capacity. Mr. Louw has been a trainer at IIT (Institute of Information Technology belonging to Lodewyk van Graan) and the Secretary for the ICT Alliance of Namibia for a period of three years. Mr. Louw is presently a part-time lecturer at the Polytechnic of Namibia.